we are on storm watch. good morning. thanks for being with us. i'm marla tellez. >> i'm jon kelley. we have complete coverage of the storm hitting the bay area. we have mike inouye. he is watching the roadways. christina loren will have an extended forecast and delays at the airport. we start off with christie smith who is at the flooded underpass in fremont. she has a look at what is nothing short but a mess all morning. i hope you have your boots on. >> reporter: i do have my boots on. we have been at this since 3:15 this morning. i have to tell you, the rain hasn't stopped. there are trees down and flooding. i want to show you the underpass. the waterfall formed off the side of the hill.

it was flooded maybe 20 minutes ago. one car had to be towed out. the driver told me the road closed sign had been moved. he said it was deeper than he thought. a larger truck made it through just fine. this is the kind of morning it's been with power knocked out to bay area bridges including the richmond san rafael bridge. there were trees toppled over because the ground is so saturated. fortunately the limb we shot did not hit anyone. along 101, pounding rain and delays. one driver had to stop and stare at it. everyone said this is frustrating. >> what will you do? >> go in a different direction. there should be some system

there to drain the water. >> i greeted the day with the area closed down. i guess there is a rock slide. we will float on out of here. >> reporter: we drove niles canyon. there are crews watching the hillside. alameda creek is swollen. the water moving quickly and fast this morning. back here live. you asked about boots. i have the boots on. i was happy to find my rain pants and gear this morning. i wanted to show you the hillsides this morning. totally saturated from all this rain that we had. we know that more is on the way. reporting live in fremont, christie smith, nbc bay area news. >> christie, i have my boots on too. you are the not alone. here is a live look at one of the trouble spots. the summit at highway 17. chp is warning drivers to be

extra careful when driving through the twists and turns. dozens of spinouts and accidents have already been reported. we just lost our shot there. probably weather related. here we go. thankful thankfully there have the not been any injuries reported so far. let's get a check of the forecast with meteorologist christina loren. good morning. this rain is nothing to mess with. we has isolated spots with over 7.5 inches in the last 24 hours. santa rosa, 3 inches of rain. in a 24-hour period, that is impressive. as we continue through the next couple of hours, the rain starting to clear. it is clearing from north to south. santa rosa starting to get a break all the way from san carlos to san francisco, watch out for dangerous driving conditions. i want to widen out for you.

santa rosa finally starting to dry out. we will dry out in san francisco. i will say by 12:00 to 1:00, things will improve. the batch of rain will move to san jose as we head through the next hour. we will not have a lot of time to dry out before the next system arrives. this is packing a punch. look at how much rain we are expecti expecting as we head through sunday. the next system arriving saturday in sunday. we will see the showers continue through the first half of sunday and get a break from the heavy rain from sunday to wednesday. that is the good news. you just saw that already saturated ground from christie smith. dangerous conditions when you consider the winds have been battering trees. some older trees can go down and flooding reports. those will continue to come into the newsroom. we will keep you updated. mike inouye, you have been so busy today. what are you tracking today? i'm following on your

coattails. that is where we see the incidents. let's show you this. 101 here at the 680. very soupy. as christina said, another hour of the rain. the south bay, you are not in the clear yet. as you stare at the screen, the rain is zig sagging across the way. we had trouble now on the maps for san jose. north 87. let me zoom into the area. north of 280. you have flooding reported. we had water across all lanes around julian after another flooding report at taylor through downtown san jose. that tied things up heading north through 87 in downtown in the last ten minutes when we started to see improvement. blue on the map shows ponding and puddling. let's show you more colors. flooding, 6 to 8 inches, south 280 at wood side. that was a tough drive.

if you are heading out of area, the bridges are an issue. the weather and wind and rain through the area. tougher visibility through fairfield at times. then the changing colors west through east at yuba pass. you see the blue and pink. pink means ice. icy conditions on roads. that is a concern. chains are not necessarily required for 880. they are suggested. bring the changes or don't go. interstate 880, a slower drive into tahoe city with icy conditions. getting around tahoe heights. you have highway 50, that is where chains are required. the white on the map shows ice and heading up to south lake tahoe where you have warmer weather conditions. those will change. just consider it yucky right you

right now. caltrains is keeping an eye on the conditions. the agency has a traffic war room of sorts in oakland where they check out the trouble spots and monitor them. caltrans calls it the traffic management center. it connects the staff to views of 300 cameras set up over the bay area freeways. the goal here is to help speed up response times to accidents and emergencies. interactive maps show the real-time traffic data collected from thousands of sensors. >> if we see a lot of red dots, then we know we can zoom in and find the nearest traffic camera and find out the problem right away. >> the hottest trouble spots where you expect. close to the water. 280 and then 101 and lucky drive. the gilman university stretch in

berkeley. pg&e tells us almost 5,000 people do not have power right now. most of the outages are in the north bay, but they expect the lights to go out sporadically in the south bay as the storm pushes through. here are tips to make the outages more bearable. freeze water bottles to put in the fridge to keep your groceries fresh. have your flashlights easy to grab and ready to go. if you use your garage door opener, you need to have a house key. if you are having flooding problems or expect any, here is the list to get your hands on free sand bags. in petaluma, you can pick them up on hopper street. at berkeley, at the city corporation yard. then in menlo park, alma street

and burgess drive. for a complete list, go to nbcbayarea.com and search sand bag. you can put your pictures or video on our web site at nbcbayarea.com or on our facebook page or e-mail us newstips@nbcbayarea.com. our storm watch coverage continues all day long. christina loren is tracking the storm right now. she will be back in a few minutes with the complete forecast and any changes heading our way. you should post your iphone 5 video you shot this morning. good stuff. still ahead at 11:00, with enthusiasm starting to fade, president obama starting to talk about a fiscal cliff at a manufacturing plant in pennsylvania. what he had to say coming up. sky high. the plan to have downtown san jose standing tall only on nbc bay area.

and take a look outside right now. take a look. we have a great view around the bay from the hd traffic camera network. palo alto, san jose and sunol. rain and wind whipping through the areas. yes, there is more to come. in a couple of minutes, meteorologist christina loren will have a complete weather update for you. she will let us know how wet the weekend will be. right now, we want to bring you other local news as well. police right now working on an investigation surrounding a homicide. one man is dead. a woman rushed to the hospital and a suspect on the loose. bob redell is on the scene. bob, you had a chance to dig up information. what have you heard right now? >> reporter: good morning, jon. police just let us up to villa costanza. this is the home where the man was murdered early this morning during the home invasion

robbery. what is striking about the property is just how large it is. it is a compound surrounded by brick walls. it seems like it would be a difficult place to break into. this was the scene a couple of hours ago down the road where law enforcement were searching for clues and evidence to explain what happened here and ultimately catch the people responsible. around 1:40 this morning, a woman who lives in the home called 911 who said the home was broken into and ransacked. when police arrived, they found her husband had been killed. they haven't said who did it or how he died. the wife was taken to the hospital. she was hurt. her injuries are not life threatening. >> of all the people who lived here and i have been here 28 years, this is the only couple i don't know. we're very surprised and shocked and taken aback by this. >> reporter: you will change the way you secure your home? >> i will put my gates up and

change things around the home, that's for sure. this is very shocking. no one ever would have suspected this. >> reporter: police have not been able to figure out yet or not telling us if this was a targeted attack or random. they believe there is one suspect. they said it is possible there could be more. murders are so rare in the area that one sergeant we spoke with said he can't remember the last time there was a murder here. this is certainly the first one this year. reporting live here, bob redell, nbc bay area news. a follow-up to the breaking news we brought you yesterday. an intruder who broke into a woman's apartment and tried to rape her is still on the run. she woke up with a man over her bed early yesterday morning in hawthorne. the man pinned her down by her wrists.

the man took off through the front door. more troubling, the attempted sexual assault happened in the same area where three women were groped in the past three months. >> i would be shaken up if i was somebody living on my own. that is scary. >> no arrests have been made in any of the cases. investigators are looking into whether there is a connection. also new this morning, crews spent the morning battling a two-alarm fire at a popular traund in restaurant in taqueiri. the restaurant getting the top honors for making the best tamale. the restaurant competing with

others across the country. the cause of the fire is under investigation. time to get a full look at the forecast. developing weather with meteorologist christina loren. >> they just keep on coming. good morning to you. i want to start with your wind speeds right now which are not as strong as we were dealing with earlier. this was more of a wind event. this is more of a rain event. that is with a we expect from the system to come. that arrives late saturday into sunday. we will have showers. we have heavy rain. i want to take it to the live radar. from oakland to san leandro. i widen out for you and you see the general nature of the front. it is pushing off to the south. we are getting a break from the heavy rain in santa rosa. we have light cells passing through here. this will continue to trend to the south and clear out of here as we head out of the next couple of hours. it is moving slowly. this is what we are expecting.

52 minutes away from the heavy batch of rain moving into san jose. 40 minutes away from milpitas. make sure you are ready for that. if you can postpone your travel plans. we have improvement when it comes to the forecast. we stop the clock in the future at noon. that is when the heavy batch is west of san jose. that will continue to dig out of here. at 3:00 p.m., a little bit of sunshine over parts of the bay area. we will stay in the intermittent pattern through 8:00 a.m. saturday. you will get outdoors from time to time. cool and cloudy on saturday. we get ready for the next heavy wave of rain through late saturday night into sunday. we stop the clock on futurecast on sunday at midnight. that is when it is active in the north bay. as we head through midnight, finally in the south bay at 9:00 a.m. on sunday. this is keeping wet weather in the mix. we could pick up an additional 3 to 4 inches in the area.

in combination with the heavy downpours, we are expecting the winds to pick up. on the key, we will get the hot pink. that is 50-mile-an-hour gusts from time to time. we are expecting the storm reports to come in as we head throughout the weekend. your nbc bay area weather team will be all over this. we will have you covered all weekend long. the aftermath, that will be a big factor. you consider the fact we already picked up 1 to 2 inches of rain from the first system. an additional 2 to 3 inches from this system. i'm talking about over the metropolitan areas in the tbay area. we are talking more with the next system with the copious amounts of rainfall it will provide to the bay area. as we get into monday, a little bit of fog. tuesday and wednesday, a tail end sneaks through. we are not talking about the heavy rain from the three systems that have come through here. it will be lighter than that. still need the umbrella. tuesday into wednesday, a few showers and we dry out thursday and friday and saturday and sunday.

looking good. bad weekend for the outdoor plans this weekend, but next week, you can make them. back to you. thank you, christina. coming up at 11:00, president obama briefs the nation on the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations. we will hear from the commander in chief. we will let you know why the picture of the new york city police officer and the homeless man has gone viral on the worldwide web.

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it seems like they have been talking about this forever. optimism is fading fast on capitol hill as lawmakers try to figure out how to avoid the fiscal cliff. no real progress has been made for two weeks. now president obama is talking directly to the american public about tax increases and spending

cuts. this afternoon, he walked assembly line outside of philadelphia. it's main product? connecx toys. >> we all agree on making sure middle class taxes don't go up. let's get that done. let's take the fear out for the vast majority of american families so they don't have to worry about $2,000 coming out of their pocket starting next year. all right. now to a story you will see on nbc bay area. >> the san jose skyline could look different if the city can get clearance from the faa. the city leaders say they want taller buildings up to 40 stories high, but since downtown is in the flight path of the airport, there are flight restrictions and that is costing

the city money. >> we can do that because we can bring more vibrancy to downtown. more people using restaurants and retail and obviously that attracts more business. >> the faa is doing a study looking the -- at other airports. critics say having taller buildings will ruin the view for the buildings already in downtown. when we come back, they are called new york's finest for a reason. kindness that has a lot of people talking.

just in time for the cold weather and holidays, it was a random act of kindness. a photo taken by a tourist in new york of a police officer helping a homeless man. this photo may shatter some

misconceptions. nypd officer giving boots to a homeless barefoot man on a cold night. >> the man noticed the man on counterterrorism patrol. he walked into the nearby shoe store and bought shoes and socks using his own money. he helped him put the shoes on. a tourist happened to be there from arizona. she caught it all with a snapshot. >> this man's face lit up like it was christmas and he had just been given a $1 million. >> i keep the receipt in my bullet proof vest because it is important a reminder that other people have it worse. >> the photo has 430,000 likes on facebook and it has been all over twitter. >> what a great shot in time for the holidays and sharing that spirit. officers get a bad wrap because

they are doing things that people don't like. he is an instant hero. >> the cops are on every corner. they are there to help. that proves they do that. >> congratulations. thanks for being with us. join us at 5:00, 6:00 and 11:00. you can find the latest on the storm watch at nbcbayarea.com. >> stay dry and stay safe and enjoy your weekend.

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